I'm the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Hitched, a service and lifestyle online magazine for married couples. I grew up in a stable and loving family with two working parents and saw a need for a marriage magazine while in college. I graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism and spent over six years at Entrepreneur magazine where I moved from intern to managing editor of Entrepreneur.com—all the while researching and developing Hitched. While still working at Entrepreneur, I launched Hitchedmag.com with the help of life-long friend and co-founder Gabriel Lefrancois. I quit Entrepreneur to grow my company, but have continued writing and reporting on business issues as I combine my love of journalism and passion to help promote healthy and happy marriages through Hitched.
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14 Practices That Will Ruin Your Twitter Reputation

In just a few years Twitter has become the go-to method of connecting with customers and potential clients, but you know that already, right? A new study of 200 executives by LiveFyre, a company specializing in social engagement and curation, found that 93% of respondents turned to Twitter when gathering real-time social activity—more than any other social platform. We all make mistakes from time to time, but you don’t want to make a wrong step with this real-time platform. Here are 14 practices that could be devastating to your Twitter reputation.

1. Fake a Twitter hack. Getting your account hacked is bad enough because people might wonder whether or not you can keep their information safe. However, faking a hack, as Chipotle recently did in a 20th Anniversary PR stunt, can leave a worse impression—that you have poor taste and judgement.

2. Talking politics. A lot of businesses and CEOs have taken heat for expressing political opinions. Unless people are following you for your opinion on a wide variety of topics, be measured in your statements.

3. Deleting a comment instead of engaging. If you find yourself getting in a heated discussion or tweet something you regret, don’t try to make it disappear by deleting your tweet. Instead, confront the issue and engage in conversation and express the remorse you may be feeling.

4. Not engaging at all. If you are a business and you have a Twitter account, and you request website visitors to follow you with those buttons on your site, make sure you’re actually corresponding and tweeting! People follow because they want information, give it to them.

5. Tweet only when you want something. It’s understandable that having direct access to customers provides a tempting proposition. However, this power should not be abused, but respected. It’s okay to ask for things, but it should be balanced.

6. Posting inappropriate pics. This sounds like a no-brainer, but apparently some people need a quick reminder. Inappropriate pictures can range from party shots to employees doing bad things. Don’t do it.

7. Tweet negative comments about co-workers. Your followers don’t need to know about internal drama. Worse, expressing rifts in a public forum shows a lack of consideration for your co-workers and the situation.

8. Fail to disclose a paid endorsement. Back in 2009 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) established guidelines that requires bloggers, celebrities and “word-of-mouth” marketers from endorsing products or services for pay without disclosure. So aside from it being illegal, if it ever did come out that you were getting paid it would be a PR nightmare.

9. Tweet before verifying. News spreads lightening fast on social media and it’s easy to get caught up with the crowd. More than ever it’s important to slow down and verify the information before retweeting. How many celebrities need to #RIP and then come back to life before we get the message?

10. Spam with DM. Just the other day I started following a new professional and within 24 hours I had a direct message to purchase their product. To be honest I follow people because I’m interested in their message, but it’s never a good idea to push a sale like this before extending a “hello.” Twitter’s an amazing platform to make connections, so make one before selling.

11. Tweet from the wrong account. A lot of folks on Twitter have more than one account, and third-party tools have made it really simple to swap between them. Make sure you’re on the right account before you tweet your personal thoughts or opinions.

12. Inconsistently tweet. There’s a lot of disagreement about tweeting too much or too little. One thing you should not do is tweet 10 times in a day and then disappear for a week, then tweet twice and then disappear for two weeks, and then tweet just once. Consistency is the key to staying engaged.

13. Not shorten your URLs. You only have 140 precious characters. Don’t waste them on a long URL when they could be dramatically shorter; offering you the opportunity to add context to the link. If the majority of tweets you’re sending are only links you’re wasting a huge opportunity to connect with your followers.

14. Capitalize or sell products from tragedy. A lot of terrible things happen in this world and when they do millions turn to Twitter to keep informed. It’s really bad form to spin the tragedy or to use a trending hashtag for personal gain. Be a good social media citizen and show respect.

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1. “TrueTwit Validation”? You know, you’ve read the person’s profile, you’ve read their tweets, you click follow and then you got a DM saying “I can’t be bothered to check out whether you’re real or not, log on to this third party website and do the work for me”. Unfollow!

2. Businesses with a private profile. Would someone care to explain to me what that’s all about?

Actually, one of the most difficult aspects is sometimes the verification. Even major media outlets can get things wrong. So if you want to be among the first to tweet news, you have to live with getting some incomplete or wrong info. With politics I often try to check sources that are ahead in terms of time zone. Not that important for scientific research.

I can’t let major media companies off the hook that easy. Posting misinformation because they want to be first goes against the basic responsibilities of journalistic organizations. As someone who has worked with/for many, I can attest that a great deal of them have eliminated standard fact-checking procedures. Unfortunately, new tools don’t suspend organizations or journalists of this responsibility. I have often thought that perhaps organizations could tag posts in breaking news situations with: #fact #opinion #rumor, etc. This might be particularly helpful with politics.

Steve, every one of these tips is valuable. In the olden days, it was pretty straightforward to define if something was in good taste and acceptable either socially or professionally. However, today, the barrier to public expression is pretty low and that invites many opportunities to participate in conversations and exchange ideas with a broad audience. Not only should individuals watch what they say but also adjust how they say it based on the specific communication. You’ve contributed excellent guidelines for producing appropriate content and sharing ideas and information on one of the most popular and easily accessible sites. Contrary to popular opinion, one should monitor their expression and tailor their commentary so that it is appropriate for the platform and customized for that particular audience.

Some of this stuff seems simple but people often seem not to think before they tweet. We just created a new tool at http://www.tweetoptix.com/ to help people tweet smarter. It’s in beta and lots of room to improve but we’d love any feedback!